Chip Berlet, a human rights activist, is co–author of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort (Guilford, 2000) and editor of Eyes Right! Challenging the Right Wing Backlash (South End Press, 1995). For more, go to www.chipberlet.info & www.researchforprogress.us.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas 2006

This is a special day for those of us who are Christians, yet there are a myriad of meanings in the hearts and minds of the people who gather around the world professing this religion.

When I took communion last night I did not do so thinking it made me better than people of another religious or spiritual tradition; or better than those who reject religion or spirituality altogether. I am saddened by those who insist that to be a "real" Christian I must reject gay marriage, or the right of women to control their own reproductive system.

The hymns I sang last night did not speak of the need to wage war or cut taxes. None of the prayers were about vengeance or retribution. The sermon was not about the necessity to end affirmative action or welfare. I find no emphasis in our sacred text on voting for conservative Republicans who support a specific platform.

As a congregation we did pray for those who were sick or in pain or distress. We remembered those who had died. We requested protection for the homeless and those who live in poverty. We asked that there be comfort for those "who suffer in the sadness of our world." We called for the strengthening of "those who work for justice and peace."

What I recall most clearly, though, was the choir singing of the need to love one another; of a law based on love and a gospel calling for peace. How chains must be broken, because all slaves are our brothers and sisters. How we are called to demand that "all oppression shall cease."

To me it does not matter how one comes to stand for peace and justice. It can be a theology, a secular philosophy, or just an inexplicable yearning to set things right. It can be based on logic, a spiritual sense, or the mysteries of a religious faith.

Here on Talk2Action we have a community that embraces many ideas on how to move forward in the defense of separation of church and state; the struggle for civil and human rights, and the demand for full equality--nothing more yet nothing less. We all have different ways of rededicating ourselves to these goals.

About Me

As a teenager in the 1960s,
I joined the civil rights movement and helped run a church-based coffee house
in suburban New Jersey. Later I was active in the movement against the Vietnam
War. I dropped out of college to work in the underground and alternative press
and served on the board of the Underground Press Syndicate.